Best Practices and Performance Metrics Using Force Control for Robotic Assembly.

摘要

Historically, mechanical assembly was predicted to be the dominant application domain of industrial robots; yet assembly tasks are still primarily addressed by manual labor. New advances in force control (FC), machine vision, and robot dexterity are enabling industrial robots, such as four to seven degree of freedom (DOF) arms and selective compliant assembly robot arm (SCARA) manipulators, to catch up with the original visions of robotic assembly. As these technologies progress, performance metrics and associated test methodologies are needed to unify research efforts, characterize the state of technology, and to provide a means for end-users to evaluate the capabilities of robotic assembly systems. This report describes the current state of force-controlled mechanical assembly, and highlights key robot technologies and algorithms that enable this utilization. Section II gives an overview of the use of robots for assembly tasks. Section III provides insight into the role of dexterity in assembly robotics. Section IV discusses various strategies used by automated systems to enable assembly. Section V describes frequently-used robot force control algorithms. Section VI provides an overview of force control options currently commercially available from robot manufacturers. Section VII discusses the metrics used to assess both force control stability and assembly efficacy. Section VIII introduces some concepts for performance testing utilizing the defined metrics.